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Authors: Catriona McPherson

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BOOK: Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder
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‘And yet,’ she said, very quietly, ‘that’s just what she did.’ I could see her eyes moving under their closed lids but they did not open.
‘Your sister-in-law wants me to drop the case now,’ I said. At that she gripped the arms of her chair and hauled herself upright, but what she said was not what I had been expecting.
‘Yes. That’s what to do. Nothing will bring her back.’ Then she let go of the chair arms and dropped back again. ‘Mary is right. Leave it now.’
I sat looking at her, exceedingly puzzled.
‘But don’t you
still
wonder why Mirren would have done such a thing?’ I asked her.
She shook her head, or rather rolled it to one side and then the other along the back of the chair.
‘No point,’ she said. ‘I did everything I could for her. Nothing will bring her back again. Please just leave us now.’
I rose and tiptoed out of the room, to find Trusslove hovering in the passage. A nearby door was open and there was something about the quivering stillness that made me suspect that a good few more servants were listening in.
‘She’s very tired, Trusslove,’ I said. ‘Perhaps more than tired. Has she been seen by a doctor?’
Trusslove gave a short laugh.
‘Who’s going to get one?’ he said. ‘There’s nobody fit to look after anyone else in this house now. Walking wounded they are. The four of them.’
‘As bad as Mrs John?’ He hesitated then.
‘She’s maybe the worst, right enough,’ he said. ‘Surprised me, I’m telling you. She’s always been so . . .’ I nodded, remembering the loud laughter and the slightly coarse vitality of the woman I had met just over a week ago. ‘And she kept them all going up to yesterday,’ he went on, ‘then pfft! Out like a wee candle when they came home from the funeral tea.’
I left by the servants’ entrance again and trudged back down the side drive to the street but did not get all the way, stopped by the sound of hurrying footsteps behind me while I was still in sight of the house windows. I guessed who it would be even before I turned; for had not Trusslove told me about the unquiet spirit wandering?
‘Mrs Gilver,’ said Abigail Aitken. ‘My mother isn’t here.’
She had caught up with me on a particularly gloomy patch, with a spreading beech tree on one side and an even more spreading chestnut on the other, so that she was cast into green shade and as a result looked utterly ghastly.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘it was your mother-in-law I came to see but if I’m to be really thorough perhaps it’s best that I happened to chance upon you too, Mrs Aitken.’
‘Oh?’
‘Your mother told me she wanted no further investigation, but I’d like to be sure she spoke for all of you.’
‘More investigation?’ Abigail Aitken’s voice came out as a rough whisper, almost a croak. ‘Of what?’ She looked about herself in a distracted way and then seeing what she had sought she laid a hand on my arm and drew me off the drive towards a wire bench set up around the base of a large tree. ‘I knew nothing of any “investigation”,’ she said, when we were sitting. ‘I thought my mother had asked you simply to
find
Mirren.’
‘Yes, yes she did,’ I said.
‘And she was hiding at the store all the while.’
‘Yes,’ I repeated. ‘At least, we can assume so.’
‘So what investigation could there be?’
‘About what happened,’ I said. ‘The deaths. Whether we’ve got a clear picture.’
‘Oh,’ said Abigail and she sat back against the trunk of the tree. ‘Yes, I see. I see what you mean. In case it wasn’t suicide. Well, it was. My Mirren. It was.’
‘You’re very sure.’
‘Who could be surer?’ she said.
‘And Dugald too?’
‘Dear boy.’
I was intrigued to hear her say so since the family had spurned him as a suitor.
‘Did you know Dugald Hepburn then?’ I asked her.
She shook her head. ‘Not at all. I only met him once and even that was not really a meeting. I just saw him with Mirren. They didn’t even know they had been seen. But he must be – must have been – a dear boy, mustn’t he? He couldn’t live without her. Didn’t want to. He must have been a very different sort from the rest of them.’
‘The Hepburns?’
She put her hand up to her mouth as if trying too late to stop the words she had already spoken.
‘I shouldn’t have said that. They are a cruel family. Heartlessly cruel – it’s easy to be heartless when you are so carefree – and I’m envious of them, but I shouldn’t let myself turn cruel too, in my envy.’
‘What is it you envy, Mrs Aitken?’ I said.
‘The children,’ said Abby simply. ‘Hilda Hepburn has three children. Three more, I mean; three still. And Mrs Hepburn had five when all’s said and done and she had the four grandchildren too. Dugald and the girls. But I only had Mirren and if I hadn’t had Mirren I would have had no one. And my mother as well, because I was an only child. Bella had two more sons – Lennox and Arthur – but they were killed in the war and so Mirren was all that any of us had.’ Then she caught her lip in her teeth. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this. You shouldn’t take any notice of what I’m saying, Mrs Gilver.’
With that she stood, picked her way over the roughish ground back to the drive and hurried away in the direction of the house. I followed her as far as the driveway and stood looking after her. She had her head down and her arms clutched about her body and was moving at a kind of harried trot – straight into the arms of her husband, who it seemed had come looking for her. As he had before, that day in the library, he caught her in a strong grip and pulled her close to him. I was too late to duck out of sight and he stood comforting his wife, staring at me with his head high like a sentry, a grim and unreadable look upon his face.
I could hardly wave goodbye and leave, nor could I approach the mournful little marital scene and join in, so I stood there, kicking at the beech cobs under my feet until, with a fond pat and a little pinch of the chin such as one would give to a child, Jack Aitken sent his wife back to the house and came to join me.
‘What have you been saying to her?’ he asked when he was close enough to talk without shouting. ‘She’s very, very upset about something.’
I stared at him. Of course a mother, a week after the death of her only child, was ‘upset’ and surely her husband, the child’s father, should not wonder what about, should he? As though he read my thoughts, Jack Aitken cleared his throat and rubbed at his face with the side of his hand.
‘I was just making quite sure that she didn’t want me to carry on trying to piece together exactly what happened with Dugald and Mirren,’ I said. His eyes flashed, black and sparkling, and for some reason the thought which popped into my head was that John Aitken must have been a handsome man, for Jack was quite unlike poor Bella. ‘Would
you
like me to carry on, Mr Aitken?’
‘I thought Mary . . .’
‘Called me off?’ I supplied. ‘Yes, she did. Twice.
She
most certainly doesn’t want any more meddling. But I thought it might be a comfort to a mother to know as much as possible. A father too.’
‘And what did Abby say?’ he asked, looking over his shoulder towards where she had gone.
‘Plenty,’ I replied. ‘Mostly about the Hepburns.’ He tried to look interested and unconcerned but failed rather spectacularly, a muscle dancing in one cheek and those black eyes wide open again.
‘She barely knows them,’ he said. ‘Couple of committees, a few church bazaars, that kind of thing. We don’t fraternise.’ He bit this off rather and was right to do so, since the non-fraternising of the Aitkens and Hepburns intrigued me; birds of a feather being what they were when it came to flocking.
‘Yes, your rivalry looks almost like a feud sometimes,’ I said.
‘Is that what Abby told you?’
‘She said they were cruel people,’ I replied. ‘I think she meant callous. But that Dugald was a dear boy, quite unlike the rest of them. That he must have been to have loved her so.’
Jack Aitken smiled absently and then his face twisted into a sudden spasm of pain. I started forward, unable not to; no one would have been able not to, for at that moment there was no filmy curtain up between Jack Aitken and his audience, no performance going on. He was white with shock, as wretched as a man could be. He waved me away with one hand and put the other out to brace himself against the sturdy weight of the nearest tree.
‘I keep forgetting,’ he said. ‘With everything so topsy-turvy and everyone upset and angry. I keep forgetting what it’s all about and then I remember again. And it’s like a knife.’
‘I’m so very sorry,’ I said.
‘Mirren forgave me for forbidding the marriage, you know,’ he went on. ‘She was sweeter and more loving in the last two months than she had been since she was a child in ringlets. She seemed almost grateful to me – well, terribly kind and affectionate, anyway. That’s why I was so sure she wouldn’t elope. As for killing herself, I still can’t believe it.’
‘Nor can I,’ I said. ‘I’m so far from believing that she did it, Mr Aitken, that here I am, seeking permission to prove that she didn’t. Dugald too.’
‘What?’ he said. He was staring at me then he blinked twice in quick succession and swallowed very hard. ‘
That
’s what you meant?’ he said. ‘When you said “piece things together”? You meant how they died? Whether they killed themselves or . . .’
‘If someone murdered them.’
‘Who would . . . who would ever dream of . . . what would ever have made you imagine . . . What are you accusing her of? You think she would kill a child? You – you –
witch
. You – twisted . . . get away from here. Don’t you ever, ever, dare to show your face here again or I will strangle you with these two
hands
.’
I could only imagine the gesture that went along with the last words, for I was off, sprinting down the drive towards the gates and my motorcar with my heart hammering.
What the hangment is going on, I asked myself, driving off rather jerkily – for my hands were far from steady. I rattled up to top gear and threaded my way through the streets to the other side of the town trying to sort it all through: Bella’s collapse, Abigail’s odd hints and Jack’s extraordinary outburst. When at last I spotted a telephone kiosk at the side of the road I pulled over and hurried towards it, scrabbling for tuppences.
‘Alec, listen,’ I said. ‘First of all, here is the number of the kiosk. Ring me back when this three minutes is up if I haven’t convinced you by then. But listen. I’ve just been run off Abbey Park on pain of having my neck wrung for me.’
‘Dear me,’ said Alec. ‘Dunfermline has been no friend to you, Dandy.’
‘I wasn’t exaggerating, darling,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t a metaphor. I’ve collected the full set to go with Mary. Bella Aitken, who must know that Mirren had no motive for suicide, wants me to leave it alone. Abigail Aitken spoke a great deal about the Hepburns being callous and cruel but wants me to leave the whole thing alone. Jack Aitken was wringing his hands with guilt about having caused Mirren’s suicide yet when I suggested that it might not have
been
suicide he reacted, as I say, by charging at me with bloodcurdling threats and accompanying gestures, which I took to be an indication that he wanted me to leave matters well alone.’ I took a deep breath. ‘What do you say to that then?’
‘What do you think I say?’ said Alec. ‘Get back in that silly little car and come home. Get out of there, Dandy. You have been sacked by the entire family now, arrested, imprisoned, threatened and almost assaulted. Go for a nice quiet walk in the jungles of Borneo if you will, but for God’s sake get out of Dunfermline.’
‘But there’s something
wrong
,’ I said. ‘There must be. What kind of people would rather have the stain of suicide upon their family than try to uncover their daughter’s murderer and have him hanged?’
‘Dangerous people,’ Alec said. ‘Really, Dandy, come home. Probably they all know exactly what happened and they have closed ranks to protect someone and there’s an end of it.’
‘To protect whom?’ I said. ‘Who do
you
think is behind it? Why didn’t you tell me you had a suspect?’
‘I don’t,’ Alec said.
‘But if you had to make a guess?’
‘Mary Aitken,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what and why but she’s the one pulling all the strings, isn’t she?’
I was silent for a moment and then nodded, although he could not see me.
‘She practically had kittens yesterday when Bella took over for once and steamrollered her into getting that man to look at the lift,’ I said. Then I gasped. ‘Alec! You don’t think she knew about Dugald Hepburn too, do you? As well as Mirren. Knew he was there? His body. Killed him, even?’
‘She can’t have,’ Alec said. ‘She was in the Abbey with everyone else, remember. Dugald Hepburn killed himself in an empty building when anyone with reason to hate him was in view of a hundred strangers. And he killed himself because his sweetheart was dead. That seems very clear. But there is something rather fishy about how Mirren died. And why. That I’ll give you.’
BOOK: Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder
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